.:Chapter Two:. A lot of Waiting

Rose felt the shift and the breeze again, she no longer felt the Doctor's hand on hers. She was running still, but it was no longer towards the door at the end of the hallway, but rather the wall at the end of the hallway at her mum's house. She was no longer with the Doctor; she was back in her universe. Rose just managed to put her arms out and brace herself. She recognized her surroundings and hit her palm against the wall. "No!" she cried, "Not again! This can't happen!" Rose leaned her forehead against the wall and let the tears fall freely. Once again, after finally reaching her Doctor, she lost him.

Jackie appeared in the doorway to Rose's right. She took in the sight of her daughter's tears and rushed to her side.

"What's happened, sweetheart?" she asked in a worried tone. She always worried for her daughter. It was more a worrying towards Rose's mental health, though, rather than towards her physical health.

Rose looked up at her mum with eyes filled with sadness and hurt. "I got back to the Doctor!" She said with fervor. "I was here, walking, then I was with him! Now I'm back here again." Rose said the last line in a defeated tone. She covered her face with her hands, unable to grasp that she lost him once again.

Jackie wrapped her arm around her daughter's shoulder and brought her closer in a sideways hug. "Oh, Rose." She said in a sympathetic tone, but nothing else.

"I've got to get back. I can use the dimension cannon again!" Rose spoke up after a few moments of silence. She was yet again, filled with hope and determination. She'd gotten back before; she could do it again.

"Sweetheart, the Doctor said you'd rip a hole in the universe if you did." Jackie spoke in a soft tone. In all truth, she didn't want her daughter pursuing the Doctor. She would be happy if she completely forgot the Doctor. Jackie couldn't deny that he had done her daughter some good, but now all he was doing was causing her heartbreak and he wasn't even in the same universe as them!

"I've already been back, mum! I got the dimension cannon to work! That was months ago! If something hasn't happened already, then maybe the Doctor was wrong for once." Jackie didn't say anything else so Rose, exhausted, went up to her room and laid on her bed, letting memories consume her until she eventually drifted off into a well needed sleep.

Rose awoke in the morning, still feeling as exhausted as she did when her head hit her pillow the night before. The smell of cooking chips drifted into her room causing Rose to look over at the alarm clock resting on her bedside table. The annoyingly bright red numbers read 12:05 p.m.; she had slept for nearly fourteen hours and she was currently smelling her mum cooking chips for lunch. They were presumably for Tony as he had picked up Rose's taste for the delicious crispiness of chips.

Sluggishly, Rose climbed out of bed and shifted her way over to her vanity. She looked at her reflection in the shining glass; looking back at her, she saw a girl with dull brown eyes whose unders carried purplish, black bags, pale skin, and blonde hair that was completely flat, a few strands stuck to the sides of her face where she had laid her head against the pillow.

Rose could remember only one time when she had looked this bad. That one other time had something in common with this one. She had looked this way after she had lost the Doctor in Cardiff, and once again, she lost the Doctor when she had just gotten within his grasp. She could swear that she could still feel the Doctor's hand in hers, but whenever she looked down at her hand she was overwhelmed with sadness and loss; each time she tortured herself, but she couldn't help but look down where the Doctor's hand should be.

Deciding it was time to clean up, Rose went into the en suite connected to her bedroom. She drew the bath and filled it up with some bubble bath. When Rose was satisfied with the temperature of the water, she climbed in. She had no intention of leaving the comfortable water anytime soon but her little paradise was ruined by pounding on the door. With a croaking voice, Rose answered the pounding. "What?"

"Rosie want chips?" A small voice questioned from the other side of the door. Tony was now fifteen months old and developed the liking of doing things for Jackie. In this case, he was fetching Rose for lunch.

"Sure, Tony. I'll be down in minute, yeah?" Rose replied, climbing out of the bath. The difference in temperature from the water to the air hit her hard. She grabbed her bathrobe off the little handle stuck to the bathroom door. Rose slipped the plush, white bathrobe on, instantly feeling the warmth surround her. Gathering up her hair in her hand, she bent over, twisting a towel around the wet locks. She stood up straight once again, putting the towel on top of her head.

Rose walked out of the en suite and saw a little Tony standing there, looking up at her with blue eyes, gleaming with enthusiasm. He stood up to about mid-thigh on Rose. His hand was by his mouth, holding a chip that he had been in the process of eating. Rose laughed lightly at Tony and mussed his blonde hair. In response, Tony shot Rose an attempted scary look but all the good it did was made Rose laugh a bit more.

"Tony, how 'bout you go wait outside for me?" Rose put a gentle hand on the back of the little boy's head as a gesture for him to move. Tony stumbled towards the door, still eating his chip.

"Okay!" the little boy giggled and ran out of the room. Rose smiled and got dressed in washed out blue jeans and a hoodie that was a little too big on her. Lately, Rose didn't mind though. She could easily slip her hands into the confines of the hoodie sleeves and duck her head down into the hood, blocking herself off from everything that was moving on around her.

Being the little impatient thing that he was, Tony pounded on the door with his palm. "Rosie!" He had finished his chip and wanted more.

"I'm coming, Tony!" Rose took the towel off her head and decided to let her hair air dry. She made her way out of the room, swooping up Tony into her arms. "Let's go get some chips, yeah?" Rose slapped on a smile and ran down the steps, holding a giggling and squirming Tony.

"These are probably cold by now." Jackie stated as soon as they entered the kitchen. "No complaining to me if they are, you hear?" Rose nodded to her mother in response and set Tony down again. She grabbed him a handful of chips and handed them to the little boy. Tony eagerly snatched them from Rose and began munching on them happily. Rose grabbed herself a plate and filled it with the chips. "Rose I think you know that you should probably get another job. You quit the one at the shop. Why you would even get a job there after the last incident is beyond me. You claim it's boring and not what you want. I know that the Doctor..."

Rose tuned out her mother while she at her chips, just staring at the opposite wall. Jackie thought that she was doing Rose good by giving her the insight from an experienced mind, as she liked to think. However, while Rose added an occasional head nod of noise of recognition, Jackie never even thought that she wasn't listening.

That was how Rose's life in the alternate universe usually was: boring. No one there truly understood how she felt. After two years of travelling with the Doctor she was still feeling the same way when she was around her family; nothing changed there. Around them she will always feel completely and undeniably misunderstood.

A week went by of normal life in the alternate universe. The only thing that changed was that Rose had just about given up on getting back to the Doctor. She spent quite a few hours just walking around the house, the yard and the town; waiting and waiting for the moment when she would slip back into the world of the Doctor. Four days of just wandering around, trying to force herself jump again had made her so exhausted that on the sixth day she just laid in bed in a moping state.

It was now the seventh day and before Rose had gotten up to get some breakfast she had decided that she would give up. She was even close to telling herself that it was just a dream and she hadn't really seen the Doctor again. It would have been so easy to tell herself that, to ask herself how probable it would be that she would land exactly where the Doctor was. Her best bet would have been working on the Dimension Cannon more until she was sure that it would work every time she wanted to get back to the Doctor.

Rose needn't worry about any of that though. When she stepped out of bed, she was suddenly in a hospital with people bustling around with their lives as if it was completely normal. For them, it was; but for Rose, it was completely abnormal.